50 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



that Pogson's observations can not possibly be made to agree 

 with the orbit of Biela's comet, as computed by Michez ; and 

 that it is very probable that the object observed by Pogson 

 is a new comet having no connection either with Biela's or 

 with the shooting-stars. Vicrteljahrsschrift Astronomische 

 Gesellschaft, X. , 1 6 2. 



LORD ROSSE's THREE-FOOT TELESCOPE. 



Those who are interested in large telescopes will perhaps 

 not have forgotten that Lord Rosse has for a long time pos- 

 sessed, not only his immense telescope of six-feet aperture 

 and fifty-six feet focal length, but also a smaller telescope 

 of three-feet aperture, whose space-penetrating power must 

 be equal to, if not superior to, that of any refracting telescope 

 which has yet been constructed. Mr. Dreyer, in a review of 

 the observations of nebulae made by Dr. Schultz, states in a 

 note that the observations of nebulae which have been made 

 at Birr-Castle by Lord Rosse, almost without interruption 

 since 1860, have been, within the last few years, made, not 

 as formerly in order to procure exact sketches and descrip- 

 tions of more interesting objects, but to give measures of 

 positions and distances of as many stars as possible in the 

 immediate neighborhood of the nebulae in Sir John Her- 



CD 



schel's general catalogue. The distances are observed with 

 occulting bars, so that the faintest stars can be observed. 

 The six-foot reflector is, however, so mounted that the ob- 

 server can follow an object near the equator only for about 

 thirty minutes, and this causes great inconvenience in the 

 conduct of the work they have in hand. He states that the 

 three-foot reflector will, in a short time, be mounted as an 

 equatorial, and will in the winter of 1875-76 be used to 

 complete a series of special observations of nebulae made 

 since 1860, and whose publication may be expected in one 

 or two years. Vlerteljahrsschrift Astron. Gcsell. X., 06. 



OX THE ELECTRIC DISCHARGES IN THE AURORA BOREALIS. 



An extensive series of observations on the aurora by Lem- 

 strom in 1871, during a journey into Lapland, and published 

 recently by the llelsingfors Academy of Sciences in Finland, 

 has become accessible to us through a translation by the 

 author, who sums up the results of his work, and that of 



